ARMENIAN'S FIRST SATELLITE REACHES ORBIT AFTER SPACEX 'RIDESHARE' LAUNCH - Armenian's first satellite has reached Earth's orbit after launching aboard a SpaceX rocket, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has announced. Pashinian said the satellite, which was launched on May 25 from Cape Canaveral in the U.S. state of Florida, will have multiple uses. "Photographs to be taken by the satellite will be used in Armenia for border control, emergency prevention and management, environmental protection, including climate-change monitoring, urban planning, road construction, geology, and other purposes," Pashinian told a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan on May 26. More (Source: Radio Free Europe - Aug 18)
RUSSIAN SPACEWALK CUT SHORT BY SPACESUIT POWER SYSTEM PROBLEM - Russian ground controllers ordered International Space Station commander Oleg Artemyev back to the airlock after data showed voltage fluctuations in his spacesuit Wednesday, cutting short a spacewalk to continue outfitting the European Space Agency’s robotic arm delivered to the complex last year. Artemyev and Denis Matveev, wearing Russian Orlan spacesuits, opened the hatch of the the Poisk airlock module at 9:53 a.m. EDT (1353 GMT) Wednesday to begin a planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 18)
ROCKET LAB PREPARES TO PUT 150TH SATELLITE IN SPACE NEXT MONTH - Since its first test launch on May 25, 2017, Rocket Lab has successfully put 149 satellites in space. The Long Beach-based firm is now gearing up for No. 150 when its next launch window opens in mid-September. The upcoming mission, dubbed “The Owl Spreads its Wings,” is slated to carry a single satellite—the StriX-1—from the firm’s New Zealand launch complex to low Earth orbit. The StriX-1 is Japanese Earth-imaging satellite firm Synspecctive’s first commercial satellite for its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) constellation. More (Source: Long Beach Business Journal - Aug 17)
CHINESE SPACEPLANE MARKS 10 DAYS IN ORBIT - A reusable Chinese spacecraft that may resemble the U.S. military’s X-37B spaceplane has logged 10 days in orbit since its Aug. 4 launch, but what it’s doing remains a mystery. The spacecraft launched from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert on top of a Chinese Long March 2F rocket around 1600 GMT (12 p.m. EDT) on Aug. 4, flying inside the launcher’s aerodynamic nose cone. The liquid-fueled rocket, which is typically used to launch astronaut crews into orbit, deployed the mysterious Chinese spacecraft into an orbit ranging between 215 miles and 368 miles (346-by-593 kilometers) in altitude with an inclination of 50 degrees to the equator. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 17)
VIRGIN ORBIT REDUCES LAUNCH FORECAST WHILE INCREASING PER-LAUNCH REVENUE - Virgin Orbit now expects to perform four launches this year, at the low end of earlier projections, but with a higher per-launch revenue. The company, in its second quarter earnings release Aug. 12, reported no revenue in the quarter and a net loss of $33.3 million. The company, though, said it recorded more than $12 million in revenue in its second launch of the year July 2, just after the end of the quarter. The company recognizes revenue at the time of launch. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 16)
RUSSIA, PLANNING TO GO IT ALONE, UNVEILS MODEL OF NEW SPACE STATION - Russia's space agency on Monday unveiled for the first time a physical model of what a planned new Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone. Russia, in the throes of what some Kremlin hardliners believe is an historic rupture with the West sparked by sanctions imposed over what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, is rushing to reduce its dependency on Western nations and forge ahead on its own or cooperate with countries like China and Iran. More (Source: Reuters - Aug 16)
U.S. ARMY HANDS OVER SATELLITE OPERATIONS TO SPACE FORCE, BUT KEEPS A FOOTHOLD IN SPACE - Satellite ground stations that for decades have been operated by the U.S. Army will be officially handed over to the Space Force on Aug. 15. The Space Force will take over control of the Wideband Global Satcom and Defense Satellite Communications System constellations of military satellites. The satellites were built and launched by the U.S. Air Force but the Army controlled the payloads. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 15)
MOLDOVA DEPLOYS FIRST SATELLITE FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION THROUGH KIBOCUBE PROGRAMME - The Republic of Moldova successfully deployed its first satellite from the International Space Station (ISS) today. This achievement was made possible with the support of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) under the KiboCUBE programme. The programme is part of the Access to Space for All initiative and enables teams from developing nations and economies in transition to develop and deploy cube satellites (CubeSat) from the ISS. More (Source: SpaceRef - Aug 14)
SEE THE HUGE SOLAR WINGS OF CHINA'S SPACE STATION IN MOTION ABOVE EARTH - China's space station recently gained a new module and with it a pair of huge, solar energy-capturing "wings" that can rotate as the outpost orbits the Earth. A new video from China's human spaceflight agency, CMSA, shows the large solar arrays rotating around the Tiangong space station as our blue and white planet passes below. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 14)
Previous Next
